HootSuite's founder learned lessons of entrepreneurship early

Ryan Holmes' technology career dates back to his days growing up in the '80s near Vernon when he won an Apple IIC computer in a computer programming contest at school.

Holmes' career has never stalled since his early forays into technology and today he is chief executive of Hoot-Suite, a social media company that he founded in Vancouver in 2008.

HootSuite is the darling of social media fans and investors alike, chalking up more than five million users for its social media dashboard, including 79 of the Fortune 100 companies and last spring attracting $20 million from OMERS Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System.

HootSuite outgrew its Downtown Eastside offices and will be moving to a 33,000-squarefoot, two-storey office building near Broadway and Main to accommodate burgeoning staff numbers that grew from 80 to 230 in 2012.

In this Q and A, Holmes shares his story of a successful start-up, his thoughts on Vancouver's digital sector and his New Year's resolutions for entrepreneurs.

Social Media Keynote Conversation: Vic Gundotra, Senior VP of Engineering at Google+

SMX Social Media Marketing conference keynote conversation involving Vic Gundotra, the Senior VP of Engineering for Google+, and our own Editor-in-Chief, Danny Sullivan.

Google+ head Vic Gundotra admits he was asked to stop using Twitter by ‘his boss’

Vic Gundotra, formerly Senior Vice President of Social (and now, of Engineering) at Google, and head of the company’s social networking service Google+, hasn’t posted anything on Twitter since July 2011.

If you’re wondering why, well, you need wonder no longer because the man has publicly admitted, on stage at an event, that he was asked by ‘his boss’ not to tweet anymore (hat tip to Mahendra ‘@ScepticGeek’ Palsule).

At the tail end of a conversation with Search Engine Land editor Danny Sullivan at the SMX Social Media Marketing 2012 event (video embedded below), Gundotra gets asked a question from the audience about his social networking behaviour, to which he responds with some interesting commentary on his Twitter and Facebook usage.